We just sent out our latest monthly newsletter by email late last night Beijing-time. If you got this (or didn't) and want that to change, customize your email preferences on your account page, or just send us an email.
Anyone else find it strange to see Jiang Zemin looking so old (frail?) in the military parade on October 1st? Or notice Li Peng by his conspicuous absence? We've become so adept to overwhelming growth and change here in Beijing that it's sometimes jarring to get such a visible reminder of how long China has been developing at this pace.On a smaller scale, in the last month we've eaten a lot of mooncakes, added more than twenty five lessons to our archives (including a new video feature), and overhauled our annotated news service. We've worked to keep prices low, and are pleased to be able to continue offering basic and premium subscriptions for only $49.99 and $149.99 per year respectively. If you haven't yet, you can subscribe anytime.And now the undead:* Plants vs. Zombies - A Great Chinese Computer Game*If you value your productivity you should skip this section. Otherwise, if you're looking for an addictive computer game that will help your reading comprehension, we highly recommend grabbing the Chinese edition of the popular game Plants Versus Zombies (植物大战僵尸). You can get a free copy courtesy of Tencent, the company that runs the popular chat program QQ:http://games.qq.com/zt/2009/zwjs/Although some of the sound effects are still in English, the entire interface has been translated into Chinese along with the interstitial story screens. The Chinese translation is great, and the game has the same playful and addictive atmosphere as its English counterpart. And most importantly, it's incredible fun. As you work through it, you'll learn a heap of Zombie and plant-related vocabulary, and perhaps even come to sympathize with the undead. * Popup Chinese University *We've fielded a lot of questions about our University package since adding the option to our subscription page. If you've wondered about this too, the short version is that our University program is a three month one-on-one study package. Our tutoring is done over the phone, although we have teachers in most first-tier cities in China at this point.Whenever anyone writes to ask about the program, our first step is to offer them a free trial to see if the fit is right. But there's no reason this needs to be a dark secret. So if you're interested, send Echo an email at echo@popupchinese.com and ask her to arrange a free class. You'll get 20 minutes of free one-on-one instruction that should give you a sense for what it's like to study with us, and give us a feel for your level and goals. We promise not to hunt you down if you decide not to sign up, so if you're on the fence give it a shot. You may be surprised how much better our system works than a traditional classroom.* Our Popular Lessons ** Absolute Beginners: I'm Hungry You Fools *Office lunch tip; when you're hungry let the world know. Loud and repeated complaints are often enough to goad colleagues into ordering food. Intended for absolute beginners to the Chinese language, this lesson will teach you all the mandarin you need to demand others feed you. Just repeat until someone picks up the phone. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/absolute-beginners/you-found-what-in-the-fridge] * Elementary: I Am Not A Spy *We tried a new format with this lesson and think it worked. Instead of a single dialogue, this podcast has four mini-dialogues around our central theme. We had a great time recording this, especially Tiansen whose newfound command of the French language will doubtless delight the École Nationale. Since once you're at the intermediate level you're bound to face questions about this sort of thing from lovers and customs officials, it helps to prepare in advance. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/elementary/i-am-not-a-spy] * Intermediate: The Gay Vampire, Part II *You read that correctly: we had two podcasts about Gay Vampires this month. The dialogue in our second one goes in a bit of an unexpected direction and so we like it a bit more. They're both pretty good though, and if you're looking for great learning material at the intermediate level they're hard to beat. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/intermediate/the-gay-vampire-part-ii] * Advanced: The Foolish Man and the Mountain *This famous wartime speech by Mao Zedong is now part of our collection of annotated short stories, complete with manually annotated mouseover popups. If you're interested in reading the *original* version of the referenced Chinese fable (and don't mind getting your hands dirty with classical Chinese) we have it manually annotated in the footnotes as well. So consider this a two-for-one: double the knowledge for half the work. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/short-stories/the-foolish-man-and-the-mountain]And that's our newsletter for this month. As always, we're grateful to everyone who's taken the plunge and supported us to date with a paid subscription. You guys rock. And if you haven't, we're sure you rock too, but encourage you to feel guilty about the freeloading until the crushing burden of all those sleepless nights forces you from your bedsheets with credit card in hand. Or something like that.Best from us all, The Popup Team
Anyone else find it strange to see Jiang Zemin looking so old (frail?) in the military parade on October 1st? Or notice Li Peng by his conspicuous absence? We've become so adept to overwhelming growth and change here in Beijing that it's sometimes jarring to get such a visible reminder of how long China has been developing at this pace.On a smaller scale, in the last month we've eaten a lot of mooncakes, added more than twenty five lessons to our archives (including a new video feature), and overhauled our annotated news service. We've worked to keep prices low, and are pleased to be able to continue offering basic and premium subscriptions for only $49.99 and $149.99 per year respectively. If you haven't yet, you can subscribe anytime.And now the undead:* Plants vs. Zombies - A Great Chinese Computer Game*If you value your productivity you should skip this section. Otherwise, if you're looking for an addictive computer game that will help your reading comprehension, we highly recommend grabbing the Chinese edition of the popular game Plants Versus Zombies (植物大战僵尸). You can get a free copy courtesy of Tencent, the company that runs the popular chat program QQ:http://games.qq.com/zt/2009/zwjs/Although some of the sound effects are still in English, the entire interface has been translated into Chinese along with the interstitial story screens. The Chinese translation is great, and the game has the same playful and addictive atmosphere as its English counterpart. And most importantly, it's incredible fun. As you work through it, you'll learn a heap of Zombie and plant-related vocabulary, and perhaps even come to sympathize with the undead. * Popup Chinese University *We've fielded a lot of questions about our University package since adding the option to our subscription page. If you've wondered about this too, the short version is that our University program is a three month one-on-one study package. Our tutoring is done over the phone, although we have teachers in most first-tier cities in China at this point.Whenever anyone writes to ask about the program, our first step is to offer them a free trial to see if the fit is right. But there's no reason this needs to be a dark secret. So if you're interested, send Echo an email at echo@popupchinese.com and ask her to arrange a free class. You'll get 20 minutes of free one-on-one instruction that should give you a sense for what it's like to study with us, and give us a feel for your level and goals. We promise not to hunt you down if you decide not to sign up, so if you're on the fence give it a shot. You may be surprised how much better our system works than a traditional classroom.* Our Popular Lessons ** Absolute Beginners: I'm Hungry You Fools *Office lunch tip; when you're hungry let the world know. Loud and repeated complaints are often enough to goad colleagues into ordering food. Intended for absolute beginners to the Chinese language, this lesson will teach you all the mandarin you need to demand others feed you. Just repeat until someone picks up the phone. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/absolute-beginners/you-found-what-in-the-fridge] * Elementary: I Am Not A Spy *We tried a new format with this lesson and think it worked. Instead of a single dialogue, this podcast has four mini-dialogues around our central theme. We had a great time recording this, especially Tiansen whose newfound command of the French language will doubtless delight the École Nationale. Since once you're at the intermediate level you're bound to face questions about this sort of thing from lovers and customs officials, it helps to prepare in advance. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/elementary/i-am-not-a-spy] * Intermediate: The Gay Vampire, Part II *You read that correctly: we had two podcasts about Gay Vampires this month. The dialogue in our second one goes in a bit of an unexpected direction and so we like it a bit more. They're both pretty good though, and if you're looking for great learning material at the intermediate level they're hard to beat. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/intermediate/the-gay-vampire-part-ii] * Advanced: The Foolish Man and the Mountain *This famous wartime speech by Mao Zedong is now part of our collection of annotated short stories, complete with manually annotated mouseover popups. If you're interested in reading the *original* version of the referenced Chinese fable (and don't mind getting your hands dirty with classical Chinese) we have it manually annotated in the footnotes as well. So consider this a two-for-one: double the knowledge for half the work. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/short-stories/the-foolish-man-and-the-mountain]And that's our newsletter for this month. As always, we're grateful to everyone who's taken the plunge and supported us to date with a paid subscription. You guys rock. And if you haven't, we're sure you rock too, but encourage you to feel guilty about the freeloading until the crushing burden of all those sleepless nights forces you from your bedsheets with credit card in hand. Or something like that.Best from us all, The Popup Team
